


Special Place

by Rotpeach



Series: The Great Tumblr Rehoming of 2018 [15]
Category: Boyfriend to Death (Visual Novels)
Genre: Graphic Description, Other, Skeletons, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2019-09-24 05:57:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17095145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotpeach/pseuds/Rotpeach
Summary: This one is human. He's not just a skeleton. And, you realize, bile rising in your throat as you watch his fingers twitch and hear a miserable wheeze leave his dry lips, he's still alive.





	Special Place

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for goretober 2016; prompt "bones"

You’ve been told that these woods are cursed.

If you were superstitious, maybe you’d be inclined to believe it. The trees lining the foot-worn path stretch naked and gnarled branches skywards like desperately grasping hands, and the way they sway when a heavy breeze blows through makes them let out this low creak like a pained moan. Moss-covered roots snake along the forest floor like veins and late at night, you’ve heard all manner of creature scurrying into the bushes somewhere ahead of you and seen eyes glinting in the path of your flashlight.

It’s not cursed, of course, it’s a forest like any other, and you feel confident in saying so considering all the time you spend there. It’s part of the shortcut you take home, the ten minutes of your day that you look forward to the most as you tramp through the underbrush in the kind of quiet tranquility that can’t be found in civilization. You’ve never seen anyone else out here, so it’s always just you and the animals in these woods, the silence broken by the occasional distant snapping of twigs and fox cries. The defiant part of you decides to make a detour, to go down a trail you usually walk past without a second thought, if only to prove to yourself that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

You’ve barely taken a few steps off of the main trail when you see a rib cage and spinal column poking out of the grass and freeze mid-step, shining your flashlight down at it. You fight the irrational pang of fear that shoots through you at the sight of the bones—you’ve been listening to that curse garbage too much—and relax when you notice the strange shape of the ribs. The curve is all wrong for a human; a deer, probably. You hear something take a step in the grass behind you and spin around, heart racing, and shine your light into the darkness.

No one there. Might’ve been a rabbit. Something that hid just as you turned to look. You tell yourself to calm down, to get ahold of yourself. You know these woods.

But when you keep going, you happen across another skeleton—an owl, or something that size, bones picked clean yet left largely undisturbed in the vague shape of a bird with its wings outstretched as though part of a museum display. That strikes you as strange. You decide to walk a little faster.

You nearly trip on the next one; a femur lying in the middle of the path, sticking halfway out of the ground, but you manage to regain balance. Your eyes widen when you shine the flashlight from a femur to half of a pelvis, and from half of a pelvis to few skeletal feet and hands laid neatly atop one another in pairs along the edge of the trail. You start to jog, passing fanged skulls cradled by low-lying branches staring at you with empty grins, wondering if you’re seeing things but not wanting to investigate any further.

The bones grow yellower and fresher the further you go, some with bits of flesh and fur still clinging to them. You cover your mouth in horror and disgust when you find a rotting deer carcass, its open belly writhing with maggots, and you almost start to run.

But that’s when you see him.

Propped up against the tree behind the deer, mouth hanging open, leafy seedlings poking through the flesh of his face and intestines scattered on the forest floor between you.

This one is human. He’s not just a skeleton. And, you realize, bile rising in your throat as you watch his fingers twitch and hear a miserable wheeze leave his dry lips, _he’s still alive_.

You nearly drop your flashlight, paralyzed with fear and disgust, taking an unsteady step back. There’s a person out here in the woods, eviscerated, plants growing from the inside of his face and bugs eating him alive. You reach into your pocket with trembling fingers, trying to think rationally, trying to remember how to even call for help. But it doesn’t matter.

You don’t get that far.

Pain blooms in the back of your head and you stumble forward, nearly pitching face-first into the dead deer’s maggot-filled stomach and only barely catch yourself. Your flashlight rolls away into the leaves somewhere and your phone lands a few feet in front of you, but your attention isn’t on either of those things.

“Ah. You’re early,” you hear.

Delirious from the blow to the head, you touch a hand to your scalp and feel blood. You look down at your red fingers in confusion, your vision swimming.

A hand falls on your shoulder and you feel someone breathing into your ear. “I wasn’t expecting you yet. I hoped I’d be done by the time you got here.”

“What…?”

“You probably don’t remember me,” the stranger goes on. “But I’ve been here. With you. Every night.”

You squint, trying to will your bleariness away. You think you see a person beside you, feel a jacket when you reach out to hold onto something. It’s a man’s voice, but not one you recognize.

“That’s alright,” he says quietly. “I don’t mind. But this place is special. Right? It’s our place.” He stands up and you fall into the leaves, unsteady without something to lean against. “Just ours. No one else’s.”

You hear the half-dead man from before take a shaky breath, hear him trying to talk but all he does is make strangled whimpers. You hear something slicing through his flesh, then feel something splatter over your cheek. Your vision is darkening. You think you have a concussion. You’re afraid.

Your body feels heavy and your head is aching but you try to pull yourself away, hands raking through handfuls of dead leaves and twigs.

“Where are you going?” you hear and freeze. The stranger walks over to you and all you can see is their shoes with blood all over them. “You probably shouldn’t move, you have a head injury. Just stay there. I’ll be right back.”

Then he steps out of your line of sight again, and you hear the other man start screaming in that same muffled and garbled voice, hear him choke and sob.

“Then,” the stranger says, “we can finally get to know each other.”

You’ve been told that these woods are cursed.

You don’t believe that. You know better.

There is _something_ very wrong here, but you’ll never get the chance to tell anyone.


End file.
